There’s a lot of history that goes into twenty years of The Sims franchise, with some games that are iconic and incredibly popular, such as The Sims 2. Other games, however, are probably better left in the distant past where only a few nostalgia game collectors can find them, including titles like The Sims Bustin’ Out.

That being said, with The Sims 5 most likely under development as we speak, it’s a great time to go back and look at any and all the features EA has introduced for its ever-popular life simulation game in the past. Here are 10 things that made The Sims Bustin’ Out so unique from the rest of the series.

10 Two Game Modes

Unlike most Sims games that focus on open-ended gameplay and daily maintenance tasks, The Sims Bustin’ Out actually had two game modes, which allowed players to pick and choose between the original Sims gameplay experience or a story mode.

The story or mission mode introduced very specific goals for the player to attain, in order to advance to the next levels of the game. Essentially, the player needs to upgrade every house in the neighborhood they end up living in, to progress to the next tier. In order to do that, they have to also work and develop their skills.

9 Gangster Career

While The Sims Bustin’ Out has many similarly themed careers compared to the rest of the titles in the series, there are some big differences in them that may have later influenced the variety of careers that would be introduced in The Sims 4 for instance.

The Gangster career is one of those examples. It mirrors closely a Criminal career from the regular The Sims games, but it has some slight differences. Each of the positions has slightly different names and tasks, which ultimately lead the player to the position of a full-on mob boss. It’s almost more of a specialized Criminal career in that sense.

8 Former Online Mode

There’s some exciting news on the horizon for those desperately wanting an online multiplayer mode for The Sims 5: it’s actually been confirmed there will be such a feature. Previously, players have only received The Sims Online, as well as the brief online mode for Bustin’ Out.

This special online mode only ran for a few years, and since 2008 isn’t supported by EA anymore. It was quite similar to The Sims Online, but due to the lack of players, it was eventually closed down permanently.

7 Counter Culture Career

There’s one career that’s extremely unique in Bustin’ Out, which would be fun to see make a comeback in a future game in the franchise. The Counter Culture career basically turns the Sim into a mainstream hating hippie, with a passion for yoga. This is the ultimate career for any Sim that’s slightly out of the norm.

Unique and slightly crazy careers like this are really what The Sims franchise desperately needs right now. In this specific career track, Sims go from being a panhandler to a full-time freak after dabbling in all sorts of arts and crafts in-between.

6 No Building In Mission Mode

A key gameplay aspect of The Sims has always been the ability to build and design houses and lots. This is one of the cornerstones of the game, which is why it might be hard to believe that The Sims Bustin’ Out had an entire game mode in which this was completely impossible.

While free play mode did allow players to construct their own homes, in mission mode players would cycle through premade homes and upgrade them in order to proceed to the next, better one. Essentially, they start from their mother’s home and work towards the Landgraab Mansion at the end.

5 Two Player Support

Not only did The Sims Bustin’ Out follow in the footsteps of the original Sims in terms of using an online multiplayer mode for some time, but it also introduced co-op play with two-player support. This involved inserting two memory card slots on the PlayStation 2 console version of the game and playing with two controllers.

Players could experience the game together fully, and the second player could even bring in all the money from their own game to the first player’s game through a chest that would appear on the lot upon their arrival into the game.

 

4 Paramilitary Career

Another very interesting career in the game was the Paramilitary career, which just by its name seems like it would be similar to the military career in the regular franchise. This is true to a degree, much of the positions on this career do reflect the military career, but there’s also a key difference.

The paramilitary career is very much mixed up with politics and the secret agent work, which both turned out to be separate careers much later on the franchise. It’s possible that they may have served as an inspiration to the developers.

3 Short Development

Many of the franchise’s games tend to be in development for years before players are able to see any sort of gameplay footage. However, this game in particular had a considerably shorter development time compared to the other games.

The Sims Bustin’ Out reached its final stage within six months, which is quite short for a game. Considering its time, it was a huge step up from The Sims, which hadn’t even introduced three-dimensional play just yet. The Sims 2 would come out the same year in 2004, but almost eight months later.

2 Between The Sims And The Sims 2

In terms of style, the game is also incredibly unique. It borrows a lot of effects and gameplay mechanics from both The Sims and The Sims 2, which makes sense considering it was released somewhere in-between these two games.

Many of the sound effects for instance were very obviously taken from the original The Sims game, but the appearance of the game itself was an excellent preview into what The Sims 2 would end up looking like upon release eight months later.

1 Unique UI

The biggest difference that’s immediately evident to any seasoned Simmer is of course the fact that the UI of The Sims Bustin’ Out is very unique compared to any other game in the franchise. This is because a console has very different gameplay needs than a PC.

The way everything is arranged can be confusing at first, and there isn’t a tool panel that is constantly open and available for players to see, unlike the original Sims for example.

NEXT: The 10 Most Useful Sims 4 Cheats, Ranked